Mob Mentality

It's only my first week on the job, and already I am certain I was close to losing my life. I was assigned to cover a graduation ceremony at Kenyatta University with another reporter. Here in Kenya, graduands don't just invite their mom and dad to the occasion...they invite their entire community. So even though each person has a limit of two people on their card, it doesn't really seem to matter. The entire clan will show up. So what you have are mobs of people trying to get into the ceremonies to see their daughter, grandson, father's best friend's brother, or neighbour's sister's cousin twice removed get their degree. And in this case, one very angry police officer trying to do crowd control...with a gun at his side. In fact, the only people who looked angrier were the ones who were being told by him that they weren't allowed in because it was over capacity.
Tens of thousands of people were yelling, cursing, pushing, anything to try to get in. Meanwhile, my colleague and I are also elbowing our way through the massive crowd, since we were already late and needed to get in to cover the speeches.
He turns to me and says: "Beware of pickpockets".
It was a good thing he warned me because as we moved further into the crowd, there were hands all around my ass but each time I turned around, I had no idea who they belonged to. I was clutching my bag for dear life, cursing myself for choosing that very morning to withdraw a large amount of money from the bank, thinking I could stash it close to me for the day.
It also didn't help that out of about 10,000 Kenyans at this ceremony, I was the only brown girl. THE ONLY ONE. So flashing a media pass and thinking it gave me licence to push my way through the crowd wasn't really going over too well with the locals. And the guard was becoming so agitated I swear it was just a matter of time before he opened fire on the crowd to enforce hsi authority. People were pushing so hard from behind that I had to hold on to my reporter friend because I knew if we got separated, I'd never find him again in this crowd. It felt a lot like a really big concert where if you lose your footing even a little bit, you're likely to get stampeded and trampled on by the people behind you. And the entire time, all I could think about was how my Telfor health insurance would likely not cover my dismembered body if they knew I didn't make an effort to "walk away from the scene", as the policy states in fine print.
At that point, the guard realized he had very little control over the increasingly angry mob, and decided to move his truck and let people through. I latched on to my co-worker, held my ground, and somehow, managed to escape the the mob, bag and body intact.

Footnote:
After all that fretting about pickpockets, it didn't really matter, since this Canadian girl unknowingly left her wallet lying open at the security desk in the Nation building earlier that morning...yes, indeed, in one of the most dangerous cities in Africa. Surprisingly, nothing was taken and it was returned to its owner later in the day, but not before the building's security staff shook their heads and laughed in her face the entire afternoon.